Harborworks Territories

By Johnathan Puff

Sometimes architecture is far more effective as a fiction. Between 1958, when it was first recognized by the Department of Defense, and 1982 when it was roundly rejected by international convention, an ambiguity existed in the United Nations Conventions on the Law of the Sea: a country could build its own maritime borders. By promoting an imaginary form of urbanism known as “Harborworks Territories” the United States would buffer its coastline with massive bulwarks of unregulated offshore industrialization, all for the purpose of claiming sovereignty over massive tracts of marine resources.